The time bomb of Liberal Fascism is ticking. While the debate over the unprecedented government takeover of the private sector economy rages, the real impact of Obama's disastrously ill-conceived policies will not be felt until it is virtually too late to do anything about it. For example, the actual implementation of the majority of the proposed reforms is not scheduled to happen until 2013. But if the need for healthcare "reform" is soooooo immediate, why wait?

Ditto the so-called "stimulus" expenditures - while Federal Money (that is, your money) is being freely given out to questionable recipients for even more questionable projects, the bulk of the spending is not scheduled to begin until well after the next election cycle. Here, again, if "stimulating" the economy was so vital that the bill just HAD to be passed lickety-split, why then hold up the dispersal of the money?

Because by 2013, in Obama's calculations, he will have already been re-elected, along with a sufficient number of Democrats to keep control of the Congress. So when the inevitable disastrous consequences of their policies (like "Cap and Tax") have finally taken place, it will already be too late do anything about it at the ballot box - at least until the next election cycle.

Now, those who have a basic understanding of economics, as well as historical knowledge of the unavoidably negative ramifications of socialist policies, are already concerned enough to do everything they can to make sure that Obama is a one-term president. But even if that effort succeeds, the country is still stuck with Obama until January of 2013 - and when you consider the damage Obama's policies have done in just nine months, it is clear that we simply cannot afford three more years.

It is therefore critical to take away Obama's legislative majority in the Congress in 2010. Because without a majority of like-minded socialists in the House and the Senate, Obama is powerless to implement his radical agenda - losing the Congress would render him politically impotent. This is exactly what happened in 1994 - just two years into the Clinton presidency, Republicans took control of the House, forcing Bill Clinton to adopt more moderate policies. The media types often fawn over the "Clinton Economy" - while conveniently forgetting that it was due in great part to the attenuating affect of Republican initiatives like tax cuts and Welfare Reform.

Most people in the country will not actually feel the effects of Obama's programs until well after 2010, so by the time the average moderate voter does realize what a colossal mistake they made in putting Democrats in control of the Congress and the Presidency, the damage will already have been done. Even worse, should Obama be elected to a second term, AND have a Democrat majority in his pocket, all need for restraint will vanish - without having to worry about re-election, Obama would be free to unleash the full force and fury of his agenda.

It is absolutely essential that those who care about the survival of the Republic begin to work tirelessly to guarantee that 2010 is the turning point in returning America to its successful roots: maximum liberty, minimum government, and competitive free markets.

The alternative is too frightening to consider...

At the rate Obama is making mis-steps on the international stage, he may eclipse Jimmy Carter as the most inept president in recent history when it comes to foreign policy. After a weak and unconvincing speech at the U.N. attempting to secure support for action against Iran, we now have Obama's embarrassing failure to persuade the Olympic Committee to bring the Olympics to America.

What is even more surprising is that in his bungled sales trip to Denmark to shill for the city of Chicago, Obama made a mistake that even amateurs in Chicago politics wouldn't have made - he went to this highly public meeting without having the deal done in advance. Talk about bush-league (pun intended).

I grew up in Chicago, and I have seen first hand how every neighborhood development program, every new facility, even the route of a new expressway, are all agreed to in private hand-shake meetings...months, sometimes even years, in advance. The agreement is "locked up" verbally long before the first article announcing a "preliminary study" even appears in the news.

So, for Obama, a veteran of "the Chicago way," to have failed to do something so basic as making sure that everything has been worked out before he makes a public spectacle of himself, gives even more credence to the charge that Obama is in over his head.

When it comes to serious international politics, Obama seems more and more to be, simply put, a lightweight. And that is not merely bad for Obama's own political career - it is downright dangerous for America.

In one fell swoop, previously invisible Democrat Alan Grayson has done more to illuminate the lunacy of today's Democratic Party than any conservative commentator could possibly hope to achieve in a lifetime.

The Florida Congressman, whose resume is shorter than Joe Biden's memory, got his 15 minutes of fame by using the same time-tested tactic that Democrats always revert to when cornered on any issue - accusing Republicans of wanting to kill people (children, the elderly, black people, take your pick) simply because they disagree with Democrat's ever more radical socialist proposals.

This time, the charge was based on Republican resistance to Obama's government takeover of the health care system. And make no mistake, this was no off-the-cuff remark - Mr. Grayson even had posters made up in advance, stating that Republican's health care plan was to avoid being sick, but if you do get sick, at least do us all a favor and "Die Quickly."

Now, we are used to this sort of hyperbole from Democrats. You may recall the late Ted Kennedy's vicious attack on Judge Samuel Alito, saying that if Judge Alito were to take his place on the Supreme Court, we would go back to the days when women would be condemned to back alley abortions, and African-Americans would be banned from lunch counters.

We are also not going to be the least bit surprised to see the "Old Media" immediately spring to the defense of Mr. Grayson, either minimizing the idiocy of his statements, or worse, actually giving credence to his charge. That is the state of "journalism" in 2009.

Now, I do hope that at least this finally puts to rest the absurd argument that "both sides do it." Oh, sure, some MSNBC pundit will try to equate Grayson's hysterical nonsense with Representative Joe Wilson's remark accusing Barak Omama of telling a lie (which Obama did). They always do. But even the most politically uninvolved are beginning to recognize the reality - the vast majority of hateful rhetoric today is coming from Democrats. Mr. Grayson's behavior simply reinforces this view.

Most important of all, I hope this inspires Republicans to finally take the gloves off.  Joe Wilson had no reason to apologize for his (absolutely accurate) statement that Obama was lying about his healthcare plan not covering illegal aliens (it most certainly will). Yet Joe Wilson did apologize - worse, some Republicans felt obligated to turn on their own colleague, joining in the criticism.

But the unrepentant Mr. Grayson not only refused to apologize for a far more outrageous comment than Mr. Wilson's - no, the Florida Democrat went even further off the deep end, claiming that not passing a government run healthcare plan is akin to perpetrating a "holocaust" on the American people who don't have insurance.

And note that not a single Democrat has repudiated even this deranged, and insulting, comparison with the slaughter of 6 million people, let alone Mr. Grayson's childish show-and-tell in the Congress. Unlike Republicans, Democrats NEVER criticize their own.

If we're lucky, the next time some honest conservative does the unthinkable (i.e. telling the truth about some lying socialist) Republicans will remember the antics of Democrat Alan Grayson...and the way his party handled it.

It has become painfully clear that Barak Obama simply lacks the intellect, the experience, and the wisdom to lead a nation under any circumstances, let alone during a time of crisis. And the majority of Democrats in the Congress have proven equally inept and untrustworthy.

Facing what should have been a modest, and temporary, economic downturn, Obama showed his utter inability to grasp even the most basic economic concepts - not to mention the lessons of history. Because, instead of reducing tax rates to free up the formidable engine of American capitalism, he blew the top off of the Federal budget with egregiously profligate spending that has sent the country into suffocating debt.

Even worse, when faced with the stark reality that tax revenues would not even begin to cover his massive spending program, his "solution" was to have the Treasury crank out paper money by the bushel, setting the stage for unprecedented inflation and devaluation of the dollar.

But perhaps most disturbing is the discovery that much of Obama's ill-named "stimulus" package is little more than a stack of thinly-disguised bribes to the organizations that helped him get elected. From big labor unions to the unimaginably corrupt ACORN, those who subsist on the backs of American tax-payers are lined up to get their payoff.

Even more emblematic of Obama's lack of understanding is his support of economically suicidal policies like the "Cap and Trade" bill, which will result in dramatic increases in energy costs that will affect every single American, the poor worst of all. Thankfully, his equally disastrous "healthcare" initiative has been stalled, at least for now.

And Obama's lack of fitness for office doesn't stop there - he is the first president ever to openly attack capitalism itself, the very foundation of American prosperity. He has surrounded himself with the most radical socialist group of advisers in living memory - including people who have made no secret of their desire to turn America into a neo-communist state. The spate of "bail-outs" - which amount to nothing less than a government takeover of private industry - is but a foreshadowing of their long term agenda.

Obama's naivete in foreign policy is yet another area of concern. From his annoying "Apology Tour 2009" where he has nauseatingly apologized for America's prosperity to just about every Third World thugocracy on the planet, to his inability to confront terrorism, Obama has proven to be incapable of inspiring even a grain of confidence in the people he is sworn to protect. Instead, he worries about the discomfort of the terrorists held in Guantanamo Bay.

And now we learn that, while he has more than enough time to appear on numerous TV shows, including David Letterman, in more than two months Obama was only able to find sufficient time to make ONE PHONE CALL to General Stanley McChrystal, the senior field commander in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile,  the crazy mullahs in Iran announce that, yes, they most certainly are rushing headlong into becoming a nuclear power - after numerous previous statements declaring that their ultimate goal is to "wipe Israel off the map." And all Obama can do is pontificate at the United Nations about "talking" to them (in a "stern" manner, mind you).

The Iranian's response to Obama's embarrassing display of foreign policy impotence tells us all we need to know about how little they respect him, let alone fear him - they fired off several long-range missiles, basically giving the finger to Obama (and by extension, us).

We are living in unsettling economic times. We need leaders who understand the inherent strength of the American system of free-market capitalism - not neo-communist radicals who want to "change" this country into a socialist nightmare.

We are also living in times of great physical threat - terrorism has not gone away. We need leaders who understand that foreign policy cannot be based on empty threats - it must be grounded in a clear and unambiguous message to the world that our words are backed up by the ability, and the willingness, to use whatever means necessary, including military force, to protect our interests, and the lives of our citizens.

No terrorist nation or organization takes Obama seriously - and apparently, neither do a growing number of Americans.

When teachers were found to be showing Al Gore's now thoroughly debunked "global warming" movie, it should have caused parents across the country to demand that it be stopped, or at the minimum, counter-balanced with something remotely resembling genuine science.

Now we find out that "The Story of Stuff" - a blatant socialist propaganda film insidiously targeted at young children - is being shown in schools across America. And there has been some reaction, but nowhere near what it would have been in, say, the 1950s, when I was in elementary school just outside of Chicago.

For one thing, the principal would have very soon found himself face to face with my father, a former semi-pro football player and Master Sergeant in the Air Force (the Army Air Corps back then). It would not have been a pleasant encounter. Nor would my father have been alone - the number of irate parents waiting their turn to speak their minds would likely have made the principal's office "standing room only." They would have been furious.

But not today.

Oh, sure, there has been some angry reaction - at least among the parents who do not restrict their news-gathering to watching the major network nightly news shows. But what will actually be done about this bald-faced attack on the very way of life that defines America? Will the teachers who showed this vile piece of Neo-Communist trash lose their jobs?

Doubtful.

Will parents across the nation set aside their political differences and agree that at least in the classroom, such outrageous political manipulation must be stopped?

Again, I don't see it. At least not yet.

Because unfortunately, for far too many people, it appears that their "pain threshold" has risen to such a level of that it will take a 9/11 style catastrophe to get them off their couches. And that is not hyperbole.

Look at the "human-caused global warming" scam - even after it has now been all but completely discredited, a huge percentage of people continue to go meekly along with the "green" movement, sitting back while the "government" determines which cars they can buy, not to mention letting the Congress pass a FEDERAL law dictating what kind of light bulbs they are "allowed" to use - in their own homes.

Now, I understand how it is easy for people to become numb to the constant avalanche of "green" propaganda aimed at adults - as a result, too many otherwise intelligent people have fallen for the "global warming" snake oil (a.k.a. "Cap and Trade"). But when it comes to brain washing our kids, that should be the last straw - every parent, regardless of political views, should go absolutely ballistic. After all, this is the kind of thing you expect to see in classrooms in North Korea or Cuba, not in the United States.

It does make me wonder what it will take to get the majority of people upset enough to actually DO something. And perhaps this time they will. But they'd better do it soon. Because if too many parents out there continue to sit back in abject apathy, they may be shocked at what kind of "educational" movies will be shown to their children next...

As usual, the Israelis had it right all along - we now learn that Iran has been concealing a separate nuclear facility. This comes as no surprise to those of us who live in the real world - we have suspected for quite sometime that the maniacal mullahs were well on their way to developing the ability to produce tactical nuclear weapons.

But the bigger issue is, what is the world going to do about it? I certainly don't expect anything substantive from the laughably inept United Nations - besides, half of the member nations would be just fine with Israel vaporized in an atomic fireball. And I have no faith at all that our Pacifist-in-Chief will do anything other than express his "indignation" at their actions. What ingrates! And just when Obama was about to announce free health care for all Iranians!

Besides, Obama, and his like-minded cronies in the Congress, have been busy attempting to disarm America - somehow, in the twisted world of the American Left, whenever some looney tunes threatens the world, the solution is always the same: we Americans should give up our ability to defend ourselves.

Oh, sure, we can count on the pompous posturing, the speeches "condemning" the actions of Iran (gosh, I'll  bet that'll have them quaking in their sandals), and eventually the U.N. "resolutions" demanding that Iran "cease and desist."

If we had a President who truly understood the essence of power politics, we might even be able to handle this issue in a way that does not give the anti-Semitic bigots of the world the excuse they want to blame Israel for the eventual outcome.

I've spent some time in the Middle East, including Israel and the West Bank, and I have little doubt how this will end. At the end of the day, it will likely be the Israelis who finally do something to genuinely deal with the problem. They will be left with little choice.

But the chaos that will inevitably result, from skyrocketing oil prices to potential violence directed against the West in general, and America in particular, will not be the fault of the Israelis.

It will rest with the gutless, pacifist American Left, who have sent the message to the world's crazies that, as of January 20, 2009, they are now free to run wild, with no fear of serious consequences.

His name was Ross. He stood six foot four and weighed 205 pounds, and even at 57 years of age, he still wore jeans with a 34 inch waist. He had closely cropped white hair, a face tanned a leathery brown by years in the Wyoming sun, and icy blue eyes that scanned everything in his path - "hunter's eyes" one of my friends once called them.

I first met him in 1995, but it was at a Minnesota camp ground in 1996 that I got a genuine insight into who Ross really was. Like most such camping facilities, there was a curfew - at 11:00PM all radios and other devices were to be turned off, and conversations were to be kept to a level that would not disturb those who had turned in for the night.

Sometime around 11:30, it became clear that one group of rather rowdy young men either couldn't read, or (more likely) had perhaps consumed a bit too much alcohol. Because they were not only shouting and laughing loud enough to be heard a mile away, they had a "boom-box" blaring obnoxious music that echoed through the still night air.

Someone down the way even yelled "turn that thing down!" - but the late night revelers went on undeterred - staggering around their fire, laughing, drinking, swearing, and generally making a nuisance of themselves.

It was then that Ross grumbled something under his breath, stood up from our fire and walked to his tent. A few seconds later he loped off down the path in the direction of the noisy camp group - they were perhaps 50 yards or so down the line of tents and small RV's.

Something in the tone of his voice told me I shouldn't miss what was about to happen, because I too got up and headed down the lane, on the other path that went behind the campsites. I took up a position just behind a tree about 30 feet from the young men. 

Ross couldn't have come up with a more dramatic entrance if he had planned it. On the opposite side of the campsite from where I was, he suddenly appeared between two trees, facing the young men circled around the fire. 

First one, then another, and eventually all of the young men turned their gaze in Ross' direction - the conversations dwindled down to whispers. Only the boom-box continued to disturb the night.

The firelight illuminated him in a way that made him look even more forbidding. The massively broad shoulders, the narrow waist, the ruddy face, those piercing blue eyes made even more so by the flickering of the fire. He was wearing a light blue chambray shirt with the sleeves rolled up exposing his muscular forearms, faded jeans, and dark brown cowboy boots.

But it was more than just his appearance that stopped the young men cold - hanging easily in Ross' strong right hand was a massive, double-bladed axe, with a handle over three feet long, the kind that lumberjacks in Alaska use. The blade gleamed as the firelight caught it.

It was then that Ross spoke, in his deep and booming voice that required no great volume to command attention. "Boys" he growled, "you wanna shut that thing off..." then, after he brought the huge axe up and cradled the blade end in his left hand, "...or would you like me to do it?"

After an agonizing second or two, one of the boys practically fell over his buddies to get to the offending device, slamming the "off" button so hard the boom-box tipped over. "Sorry..." he squeaked.

"Thanks, boys," replied Ross, who then stepped back into the darkness, vanishing like some demon the boys all wished they had only imagined.

Ross died the following year - a massive heart attack doing to him what few mortal men could have accomplished. But I will never forget that night, and what it taught me.

I thought about Ross the other day, when I read that a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 31% of voters agree with the decision of the Obama administration to withdraw the U.S. missile shield from Poland, but 38% disagree. Thirty-two percent (32%) are not sure what’s best to do.

More to the point, fifty-eight percent (58%) of Republicans oppose the president’s decision, a view shared by the plurality (43%) of voters not affiliated with either major political party but only 15% of Democrats opposed the withdrawal. A paltry 15%?

I couldn't help wondering what Ross might have thought...

After my recent commentary on the pathology of socialism, I received a number of emails from people asking why some of their moderate friends, who are responsible, hard-working people, still seem to fall so often for the latest socialist sales pitch. In fact, it is the sales pitch itself that contains the answer.

It has to do with one of the fundamental tactics employed by the American Left - they avoid dealing with those annoying little details like the actual (often disastrous) consequences of their policies.  Instead they concentrate on framing every debate in terms of key words and phrases that focus-group testing has shown will resonate with people - emotionally.

Two of the most commonly employed terms are "fairness" and "justice" - we hear demands for "social justice" at every turn. Now, savvy conservatives know full well that "social justice" is simply code for socialism - dig into any organization that uses that phrase and, odds are, they are all about taking money from people who earned it and giving it to people who don't. But many moderates do not follow politics closely (that's why they're moderates), so the phrase sounds vaguely reasonable, perhaps even noble.

My current personal nomination for most deceptive language is "environmental justice"  - what that could actually mean is a mystery, but the Left uses it to justify every unutterably socialist intervention into our daily lives. The onerous "Cap and Trade" legislation, which will ultimately hit the poor the hardest, is but one example. Once again, whenever a leftist uses the word "justice" it is time to hold onto your wallet.

Do a Google search and you will see how many radical far-left groups have even incorporated the word "justice" into their names. It has become a reliable red flag (pun intended) - any organization so named is almost certainly a far-left socialist front group. There are even seminars and "social justice" training camps designed to recruit and train young people to become the next generation of socialists - a job with ACORN soon to follow, no doubt.

But don't underestimate the effectiveness of this seemingly childish approach. You need only look at the vacuous campaign of Barak Obama to see how a few mindless catch-phrases can be successfully employed - remember when journalists asked many of those moderates who ended up electing him to explain exactly what "Hope and Change" actually meant, and we got little more than incoherent ramblings. But it didn't matter. Obama got their vote.

A big part of socialist propaganda is founded on one of the most basic aspects of human nature: the desire to think of ourselves as, well, "nice" - admit it, we all do. And note that many of your genuinely kind and decent liberal friends are very much opposed to the screeching far-left harpies of MoveOn.org or the DailyKos - yet, these same people persist in describing themselves as "liberal." But why?

Because, after an all-out campaign by the Left to cast conservatives as "mean" or "heartless," your friends, both moderate and liberal, have come to believe that to be liberal is to be "nice." So it is easy to see, even for a moderate, how uncomfortable it would be to oppose something with the words "fair" or "fairness" in it - why, that would be downright un-American, wouldn't it?

On top of this clever linguistic chicanery, which is repeated over and over by their oh-so-willing co-conspirators in the mainstream news media, we have the endless promotion of liberal viewpoints on every major TV show - blatantly biased political messages are now subtly inserted into almost every episode. One recent example will make the point.

In an episode of "Criminal Minds" this past week, an "environmentalist" group was initially suspected of being part of a string of arson fires that killed several people, but naturally the cast quickly bends over backwards to assure each other (and us) that the killer could not possibly be part of the group. The main character, played by Mandy Patinkin, even goes so far as to assure the "environmentalist" group's leader (who, by the way, just happens to be dying of Leukemia - sniff, sniff, hanky please) that "You know, I support your cause."

But just in case you still didn't get the message (i.e. - that eco-whackos are really, you know, nice) the young, arrogant FBI "genius" character condescendingly explains to his (obviously less-evolved) colleagues, who still harbor doubts about the group, "they aren't 'eco-terrorists' - they're 'environmental activists.'"

Right. And the Columbian drug cartels are just "independent pharmaceutical distributors" seeking "economic justice."

Finally, those in the "moderate" camp desperately want to avoid seeing themselves as "extreme" - that's why they go for the comfort of that "middle ground" in the first place. They will remind you that "there are extremists on both sides" - while pointedly assuring you in the same breath that they have no intention of being in either of those camps. Thus they are easy targets of marketing campaigns that couch even the most radical socialist programs in terms that sound "centrist" or "reasonable" - even when they are anything but.

So it shouldn't take a rocket scientist (or a psychiatrist, for that matter) to see why so many of your politically uninvolved friends eventually absorb the underlying message - if you want to be "nice" and/or "moderate" you dare not oppose anything described as being about "fairness" or "justice."

We have a lot of work to do.

In spite of valiant efforts by the left-wing press to assign every conceivable motive (other than the real one) to those who would dare oppose Obama and the ever more left-wing Democratic Party, the public is finally waking up. There is a reason that virtually every left-leaning news organization is beset by falling readership/viewership and plummeting advertising revenues - while FOX News keeps growing by leaps and bounds.

Naturally, after desperately trying to hide the huge 9/12 rallies altogether, when finally forced to report on them, the Obama faithful in the media first attempted to downplay the size of the crowds. But when legitimate photos showed the crowds to be substantially larger than even those at Obama's own inauguration, they went for the race card - they dutifully scoured the videos to find someone, ANYONE, with a sign that could just MAYBE be construed as having a "racial" overtone. Then came the endless "panels" discussing the "hidden" racism that just MUST be driving the opposition.

Now comes the exposure of ACORN, one of Obama's pet socialist enterprises, as an astonishingly corrupt organization. But it was not brought to light by the likes of "Nightline" or "20-20" or any other mainstream media powerhouse. No, this truly brilliant piece of work was done by a couple of amateur investigative journalists barely old enough to vote.

And they didn't just cherry-pick one ACORN office, or go through a number of "dry wells" until they came up with a corrupt employee or two (the method used by the "Old Media" to unfairly portray conservative groups for decades). No, they found the same frightening corruption at EVERY office they visited.

Well, gosh, I guess old Charlie Gibson and the rest of the mainstream media types will finally have to actually report on ACORN. Uuuuh, well, sort of. Seems the focus of their (long overdue) "investigation" of the ACORN issue will be...to investigate the young journalists! It is precisely this kind of yellow journalism that is causing the increasing disenchantment with the Old Media - and liberalism in general.

The People are fed up.

They are fed up with a lopsided tax code that has half of the nation working to support the other half. After 40 years and TRILLIONS of dollars spent on an endless string of failed welfare programs, liberals now want MORE.

The People are fed up with monopoly government schools that have become little more than indoctrination centers, where union-protected teachers drown our children in liberal propaganda. Instead of actually teaching, they demean the founding fathers, denigrate American free enterprise while extolling the "virtues" of socialism, and force our kids to watch Al Gore's fraudulent "global warming" movie.

The People are fed up with more, and more, and, yes, MORE government intrusion into every aspect of their lives - from mandated light bulbs to ethanol subsidies to now, government controlled healthcare.

And then we find out that ACORN, an organization that has already been the recipient of tens of millions of tax-payer dollars (and is scheduled to receive BILLIONS under the Obama's bogus "stimulus" spending), is nothing less than a vile, corrupt, and unbelievably amoral group of thugs. Oh, a little side note - their lawyer at one point was - Barak Obama.

So, beware, those of you liberal elitists who think this whole thing will "blow over" - this movement is real, it is sincere, and it is growing. After having heard the nauseating chant of "Yes, we can" for far too long, they are finally saying, loudly and clearly:

"NO, you WON'T!"

Pity the poor conservative who keeps trying to persuade his liberal friends with things like facts, logic, or history - you're wasting your time. Because socialism is not, and never has been, about reality. Or at least, not objective reality.

Socialism, or rather, the belief in socialism, is essentially a case of arrested development. In a sense, we all are born into a totally socialist environment - we are fed, clothed, protected, and comforted by an all-powerful external entity (the family). We do nothing for ourselves.

But gradually (in healthy families, at least) we are required to take on more and more responsibilities for our own well-being (making our own meals, etc), as well as learning that if there are things we want, we must work to earn them - the first exposure to the economic reality that "there is no free lunch." Even an allowance should not be just handed over without strings (unless of course, you are TRYING to raise a future socialist). No, in the best families, whether rich or poor, it is earned. We make our beds. We take out the trash. We mow the lawn.

But it is during adolescence that the real transition to adulthood begins - or at least it should. Because an adolescent is no longer a child, but is not yet an adult either - he wants all of the benefits of adulthood, but, like the child, wants none of the responsibilities. Sound familiar?

Now, if their parents do their job of gradually demanding more and more accountability from their teenagers, especially for their own needs or desires, they will be well on their way to becoming self-sufficient, independent citizens - with a clear understanding that their life (and life-style) is ultimately THEIR responsibility. They will go out into the world, get real jobs, know that THEY are responsible for their rent or house payment, car payment, and credit card bills.

But if adolescents are given the benefits of adulthood without any concurrent responsibilities, their growth will be inhibited - they will stay in perpetual adolescence. If you buy them a car, pay for the gas and insurance, send them to college with NO contribution on their part, and then let him (or her) live rent-free at home into their '20s and even '30s, don't be surprised if they embrace a socialist political view - having "the government" take care of them will be a natural extension of the world view they have lived in since birth.

Naturally, the budding socialist has a whole host of psychological rationalizations for their desire to take from those who earn and give to those who don't. You've doubtless heard comments like this: "I just feel that in the richest nation on earth, no child should go without ("free" food, "free" health-care, "free" education, cell phones, designer shoes, ad nauseum)."

Now, first of all, whenever a liberal/socialist talks about "free" anything, what they really mean is that they want YOU to pay for it - study after study shows that when it comes to being really generous (i.e. with their OWN money) self-described liberals, even rich ones, give dramatically less than even poor conservatives.

And note that when they say "the richest nation on earth" they make it sound like we just HAPPENED to find ourselves in all this wealth and prosperity, with the implication that, as Americans, we are just more "fortunate" or "lucky" than others. Which means, of course, that we should be willing to "share" our (undeserved) bounty with, well, just about everyone.

Note also how socialists see your simply wanting to keep what you earn as "greedy" - but their wanting to STEAL what your earn to give it to some other loser they condescendingly see as "needing a boost" - well, that's just, you know, "fair."

But America's wealth is no accident - it is the accumulated effort of millions of INDIVIDUALS who have the FREEDOM to achieve to best of their abilities that continues to produce the highest standard of living on earth. And no matter how many new and different immigrant groups come here, most wholeheartedly embrace the free enterprise capitalist system that attracted them in the first place. Of course they do - many of them left the very kind of socialist nightmares that American "progressives" are trying to bring about here.

However, if you want to use the force of government to forcibly take money from one citizen and give it to another, it helps to convince yourself that they didn't really earn it in the first place, or that they got it at the expense of some imagined downtrodden group or another - note how many times some hand-wringing quasi-socialist nitwit will attribute American success to somehow "taking advantage" of the Third World.

Nonsense. Wal-Mart has done more for every poor person in America than all of the government welfare programs put together - they not only provide goods at prices that make them affordable to the poorest Americans, they employ people of every age and background - giving them dignity in the process (something that no demeaning welfare check ever provides).

For two centuries, the bravest, most courageous people on the planet have left their homelands and traveled across oceans to come to a land where they didn't even speak the language, to participate in the most productive enterprise in all of human history. And now, in spite of all the abject failures of every socialist experiment across the world, America's "progressives" want to bring this same "equal distribution of poverty" here.

Pathology indeed...

You know the Left is in full panic mode when they trot out the charge of racism - unable to intellectually defend their ever more intrusive policies, they invariably resort to personally attacking their opponents. And nothing makes for a good smear in today's hyper-sensitive culture like accusing someone of being a racist.

Now, any thinking person would find trying to connect opposition to a government takeover of the health care industry with Obama's racial background to be simply absurd on it's face - after all, many of these same people voted for him.

But the mainstream media, most of whom no longer even attempt to hide their support for Obama and the Democrats, aid and abet the race-baiters by actually giving credence to the charges, no matter how ridiculous. They gleefully jumped on board the "race" angle - making it the centerpiece of their "news" coverage.

Those of us who have followed the increasing complicity of the mainstream media in giving life to such falsehoods are not fooled for a minute. But there are still a lot people in America who get their "news" exclusively from the same old sources - ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, the New York Times (and all the papers across the nation who blindly follow their lead - their articles and editorials originate from the same sources).

Note how often your liberal friends are completely unaware of major issues that you have been following for weeks. Mention the Van Jones resignation or the ACORN debacle and they look like deer in the headlights - they haven't even heard about it. And as a wise journalist once said:"we don't have to tell you what to think - we already control what you think ABOUT."

In spite of the many flaws of the Internet, talk radio, cable networks like FOX, and other such "new media" (and there are many), were it not for the emergence of these multiple alternative sources for digging into the facts, none of us would be able to even challenge, much less debunk, the now relentless waterfall of propaganda coming from what used to be legitimate news agencies.

But no amount of factual or reasoned conversation will keep the Left from playing the race card. It's their stock in trade. The only thing you can do is to keep refusing to let them use it to achieve their real goal - to silence you.

...eight years ago, when we worried about far more important things than getting someone else to pay our doctor bills.

Remember - when the first plane hit...and we all tried to tell ourselves that it must have been an accident.

Remember - when the second plane hit...and we were forced to face the nauseating truth that what was happening was nothing less than an act of war.

Remember - when, as people were running out of the smoldering buildings...hundreds of New York firefighters ran in...never to return.

And perhaps more than anything else...

Remember - when a young man and woman held hands while standing on a window ledge of the 90th floor of the World Trade Center...then jumped to their deaths.

Remember...

Have you noticed how the word "profit" has become almost a dirty word? And not just in your local socialist coffee shops - in movies, news and entertainment TV shows there appears to be a consensus that "profit" is somehow a negative thing. News anchors drip with disdain when describing private sector corporations - often announcing "record profits" as if they were something requiring an apology. Characters in movies scowl when discussing those whose "only concern is profits" (they practically spit the word "profits").

Meanwhile, these same talking heads fawn endlessly over any organization described as a "non-profit" - the contrast is quite stunning. Whether interviewing a "community organizer" or the CEO of some charitable fund, the message is clear - profit is evil, or at least, well, unseemly.

All this is rather odd when you consider that profit, or more precisely, the competitive pursuit of profits, has been the source of virtually every major advancement in improving the human condition. As one astute capitalist quipped: "From the telephone to the automobile, from the airplane to polio vaccine - it is the perfectly natural, and noble, desire to profit from the fruits of one's labors that has driven all human progress. It is no coincidence that I've never met a social worker who had a single patent to their name."

The healthcare debate is a perfect example of this dichotomy - the supporters of "universal" (read: taxpayer-funded) healthcare constantly berate EVERY enterprise that exists to make a profit. Insurance companies. HMO's. Drug Companies. Even doctors and nurses (unless they work for a "non-profit" that is).

But history has shown clearly that the pursuit of profit is the most effective motivator in the production of quality goods and services at competitive prices. Conversely, you need not look very far to find examples of what happens when there is no profit motive, and as a result, no competition - been to the DMV lately? Or look at the Detroit public school system, which graduates only 28% of their high school students, while spending TWICE as much per student as the average private school. Any for-profit private school that performed that poorly would be out of business in short order.

And contrary to the anti-business view that most socialists hold, the profit motive is even good for the employees - the most profitable companies in America are almost invariably described as among the best places to work. Savvy executives learned long ago that happy, well-treated employees produce happy, long term customers, and resulting higher profits. Oh, sure, you can realize a short term profit gain by short-changing your employees, but eventually the result will be that your best employees will leave, often going to your competitors. And your customers will not be far behind.

But the proponents of a government run approach continue their attack on the very free enterprise, and yes, for-profit system that has given us the finest medical care in history - and the envy of the world. When they get sick, no one goes to Canada or Great Britain, let alone Cuba. They come here.

And please spare me the canard about "government funded research" - check the books and you will find that most of the programs that actually produce the real break-through innovation got their funding from for-profit entities. Why? A scientist working on a government grant can collect checks for years without producing ANYTHING. Not so in the private sector - as Dan Akroyd's character in "Ghost Busters" so wonderfully summarized: "I've worked in the private sector - they demand RESULTS."

No, without the possibility of profit, and the competitive environment that a truly free-enterprise system provides, there would be no miracle drugs, no MRI's, no CAT scan machines, no pacemakers, no dialysis machines - in short, virtually no medical progress at all.

Profit produces innovation.

Profit rewards excellence.

Profit punishes mediocrity.

Profit improves value.

Profit is good.

Conservatives continue to miss the underlying reason for the Left's hurling of the "racism" charge at every turn. Even veteran political observers are "puzzled" or "confused" by the accusations, or they simply write them off as the usual attempt by the Left to avoid dealing with the substance of an issue by instead demonizing their opponents. But it goes much deeper.

For starters, most (though certainly not all) liberals see everything through the prism of "race." Their definition of "diversity" is a good example - the focus is invariably on race. Those on the Left have absolutely no interest in genuine diversity, such as diversity of thought or viewpoint. In fact, they have amply demonstrated that they will do anything in their power to silence those with whom they disagree - the obscenely misnamed "Fairness Doctrine" is but one example.

We have seen how "affirmative action" - originally conceived to prevent unfair discrimination, has devolved into a de facto quota system, where racial representation "by the numbers" is the only focus. And from welfare to the housing crisis, just about every policy of the Left is somehow tinged with the issue of race. They are marinated in it. They are consumed by it. It infuses everything they see, everything they hear, everything they do.

A friend of mine, a conservative, pointed this out to another friend of ours, a liberal woman who denied having any racial biases. He reminded her that whenever he refers to his friends, he simply says "my friend, Ron" or "my friend, Lenny" - but that whenever she speaks about any of her friends, she feels compelled to include a racial reference: it's always "my BLACK friend, Eleanor" or "my ASIAN friend, Sue." She was appalled at first, but at least she eventually had the integrity to admit that, yes, she was more than a little preoccupied with race.

But when it comes to the charges of "racism" against anyone who dares disagree with the policies of Barak Obama, the explanation is even more basic. It has to do with why so many of them voted for him in the first place. It is hardly a secret that the overwhelming majority of Obama voters did not cast their ballots for him because of his policies - we all remember those hilarious man-on-the-street interviews where Obama supporters had no idea what his policies even were.

No, most of these people freely admitted that they voted for Obama precisely because of his race. It was simply "time for a black president" or they "wanted someone who looked like" them. The result is that, in their twisted logic, since they voted FOR him because of his race, if you voted AGAINST him, you must have done so for the very same reason - his race. And even if you did vote for Obama, if you now disagree with his policies, well then, you are - voila! ... a racist.
 
Got it?

GUEST EDITORIAL: False reports about guns

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Monday, August 31, 2009

Many media outlets have misfired about guns. Countless newspapers and television networks -- from CBS to MSNBC -- have misreported that conservative protesters are threatening President Obama with guns at public events. It hasn't happened.  [Even the Secret Service agrees that this legal conduct has presented no threat to the President.]

In Portsmouth, N.H., a man carrying a gun, William Kostric, joined an Aug. 11 health care protest. This was blocks away and hours before Mr. Obama's town-hall meeting in that city. Mr. Kostric was given permission to be on church property where the protest occurred and was not at the place the president visited. What most of the coverage left out was that Mr. Kostric didn't carry his gun only for the protest; he legally carries a gun with him all the time for protection.

While the media regularly used terms such as "hotheads" to mischaracterize the situation, the coverage ignored that union members who opposed the protest had attacked Mr. Kostric and a friend, kicking, pushing and spitting on them. Despite violence against him by Mr. Obama's supporters, Mr. Kostric did not draw his gun or threaten anyone.

On the CBS Evening News, Katie Couric asked, "Are we really still debating health care when a man brings a handgun to a church where the president is speaking?" Deliberately or not, she got the facts wrong. As we know, Mr. Kostric did bring a gun to the church, and besides, the president was not there and never was scheduled to speak there. Mr. Obama spoke at a separate event at a local high school at a different time.

Not letting facts get in the way of her hysterical story line, Ms. Couric linked Mr. Kostric's gun to "fear and frankly ignorance drown[ing] out the serious debate that needs to take place about an issue that affects the lives of millions of people."

In another case in Arizona, a black man staged an event with a local radio host and carried a semiautomatic rifle a few blocks away from another Obama town-hall meeting. According to the radio station, the staged event was "partially motivated to do so because of the controversy surrounding William Kostric." This occurrence was not an example of an outraged gun-toting Obama protester, but a stunt to garner attention for a shock jock. Of course, this inconvenient truth was ignored by most news outlets.

MSNBC misrepresented the facts to try to back up a bogus claim about racism being behind opposition to Mr. Obama's agenda. On Donny Deutsch's Aug. 18 show about the Arizona town-hall meeting, the producers aired a clip of the anonymous black man carrying the so-called assault rifle -- but the network edited the tape so the man's race was obscured.

Truth be damned, MSNBC anchor Contessa Brewer [ignoring the glaring fact that the man with the gun was BLACK] said, "There are questions whether this has a racial overtone. I mean, here you have a man of color in the presidency and white people [emphasis ours] showing up with guns strapped to their waists." Another commentator on the same show worried about the "anger about a black person being president." The supposed result: "You know we see these hate groups rising up." [What "hate groups?"  Ooops, I forgot - never let the truth get in the way of your agenda!]

MSNBC's irresponsible behavior is more than just bad journalism; it sows distrust between races. Ernest Hancock, the radio host who staged the event, was hoping to get some free publicity for himself and his show. Whatever one thinks of this PR stunt, it had nothing to do with race. MSNBC misrepresented a black man carrying a gun as a white man to invent a racial dynamic that didn't exist.

Media disinformation about guns is a sad sign of the drastic action [many] will take to undermine support for gun rights for law-abiding citizens.